


there's a beauty in the fall

by thatwasanticlimactic



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Hurt Sokka (Avatar), Hurt Suki (Avatar), Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Slight Canon Divergence, Sozin's Comet, Suki & Aang (Avatar), Suki (Avatar)-centric, but zukka inspired this:), in this oneshot we love suki, major character death (kinda), ozai is there briefly sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:15:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28822074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatwasanticlimactic/pseuds/thatwasanticlimactic
Summary: “Sokka!”She had never heard herself sound more afraid. Not when her home was destroyed, not when she was in prison.The look on Sokka’s face as he fell would forever be ingrained in her memory. Mouth open, eyes so wide that even from further back (further back but so, so close) she could see the tears of unbearable trepidation in his eyes.She knew Toph was talking to her-- she knew-- but she couldn’t make sense of the sound, not when she was still waiting for the scream she knew would never come.(because Sokka was anything but quiet, and it was all the more unsettling that she never even heard him scream)[orOn the day of Sozin's Comet, Sokka falls off of the airship]
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 177





	there's a beauty in the fall

**Author's Note:**

> On February 1st, 2019, Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu aired the 97th episode of the show, The Fall, in Australia. On February 1st, 2019, Cole fell into the cloud. To this day, I am still amazed and haunted by how the show handled this scene. It was beautiful. It was heart-wrenching. I still get chills when I watch it. Hope you feel the pain I still feel from that episode.
> 
> So I made Sokka fall:)
> 
> you know, coping:)
> 
> *when I tell you I almost named this "there's more to life than surviving"...*

It all happened in a moment; one singular, preventable moment.

She was close, something she’ll always regret with every fiber of her being. She was close enough to hear their voices-- close enough to grab Toph when Sokka managed to pull her back onto the airship.

But she wasn’t close enough. She thought she was, when she heard Sokka cry out in pain, his leg laying in an unnatural direction and his shoulder looking out of place.

She thought she had more time before the airship creaked, a stray firebender they had missed landing just a few feet away from him.

It all happened so fast, so impossibly fast that she wasn’t quite sure it had actually happened.

One moment, Sokka was lying on the metal, the next the Fire Nation soldier sent a blast of fire his way and she watched as he attempted to roll out of the way. But he was defenseless: no weapons, an injured arm, and a clearly broken leg.

And Suki watched as he fell.

_“Sokka!”_

She had never heard herself sound more afraid. Not when her home was destroyed, not when she was in prison.

The look on Sokka’s face as he fell would forever be ingrained in her memory. Mouth open, eyes so wide that even from further back _(further back but so, so close)_ she could see the tears of unbearable trepidation in his eyes.

She knew Toph was talking to her-- _she knew--_ but she couldn’t make sense of the sound, not when she was still waiting for the scream she knew would never come.

_(because Sokka was anything but quiet, and it was all the more unsettling that she never even heard him scream)_

“H-he fell…” Suki said, her voice so low she wasn’t quite sure that Toph could even hear her.

“What? Suki, what happened?”

“Sokka. He fell. Into the ocean.”

Again, she watched-- because that was all she could do-- as Toph’s breath quickened, as her face morphed from frightened confusion to panicked worry. “If we hurry we can still catch him! Come on, turn this thing around! Or, maybe we can find him before--”

_(and oh, how it quite literally aggrieved her to hear how broken and terrified Toph sounded)_

“Toph.” Suki cut her off, but didn’t continue. What more was there to say? Sokka had fallen. He had two clearly visible injuries. Smoke was coating the air. They were so high up, the force in which he would hit the water… there was no way he survived.

Besides, they were in the middle of a war. There was no way to logically justify going back for one person who was more than likely dead. As much as she wanted to find a way to logically justify it, she couldn’t.

_(she had already ran through all the other ways to justify it in her head, and, oh, how she would rather listen to her heart rather than her head)_

The prolonged silence drew a sob from the young girl. All she could offer was a hand to hold.

It would haunt her that even in this moment, in the presence of the strongest person she had ever met, Toph cried, but Suki never shed a single tear.

* * *

Regrouping with Aang should have been a joyous occasion.

The young boy’s face melted when they landed, some kind of relief mixed with hardened disparity. He flung himself into her arms-- or, arm, she supposed, as she hadn’t let go of Toph’s hand-- and gave her the biggest, most powerful hug in the world.

“I did it,” he breathed, a sort of strained smile tugging at his lips. “I took his bending away. He’s not a threat anymore. _We won.”_

And how Suki wanted to let Aang have this. How she desperately wanted this poor unwilling catalyst to a war he never wanted to have a moment to catch his breath, to feel alive again. But she couldn’t bring herself to give it to him and then take it away seconds later.

“Sokka fell.”

She was never one to beat around the bush. And maybe she should have said it differently or explained the situation in a way that one would to a young child, which he was _(sometimes she forgot he was still twelve. She wished he was allowed to be just twelve)._

The look of pure horror and devastation that adorned his face made her feel guilty. What else was she supposed to do, though? What else _could_ she do _(so much)._

"No," he protested. "No, he-he... did you find him? Did you--"

"There wasn't time," she croaked, hating how true the statement was, wishing they hadn't been fighting the final battle of the war in that very moment.

Aang said nothing in reply, his tattoos and eyes beginning to glow a bright white. It was a disheartening sight, and it broke Suki when she realized that Aang had been through so much in his life that the only way he could process the grief he carried was through the Avatar State.

Hysterical, triumphant cackling broke through their silence. Ozai was slouched, weak, and filthy, but he still found the energy to laugh. Laugh at the expense of Sokka.

“He’s the Water Tribe boy, right? The nonbending one?” he spoke, voice was rough but laced with glee. “He fell, did he?”

Suki so desperately wanted to ignore him, she didn’t want to dignify the crude remark with a response. He wasn’t worth it _(but defending Sokka’s honor was)._

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Ozai continued, as if he couldn’t see the ground rumbling beneath Toph’s feet, the fierce wind that came along with the Avatar State, and Suki’s empty fist clenched tightly. “He was weak, just like the rest of them.”

And really, when Suki thought about it, of course Ozai wasn’t stupidly baiting the trio. Ozai wasn’t the most powerful bender, not by a long shot, but he wielded both the power of bending and words. How else had he managed to get the Fire Nation to justify the cruel burning of his child? He knew there wasn’t an immediate way to come out on top, but he knew exactly how to hurt them.

“Shut up!” demanded Toph, and at this point Suki could feel the Earth moving wildly beneath her feet. _“Shut up!”_

Ozai still laughed, though.

Even as Suki coaxed Aang back to them, as they flew back to the Fire Nation, she could hear his mocking laughter. She could still hear it when she (regretfully) fell asleep that night on the ship. It pained her, and not just due to the substantial amount of hatred she felt for the man, but because his laughter rang clear and loud, but she still couldn’t hear Sokka scream.

* * *

The weight of informing Sokka’s sister, boyfriend, and father the news of his death was heavy against her back. It was almost unbearable, a pressure that could never be removed.

The second she saw Katara, she wanted to run away. But Suki had never been one to run away. So she didn’t.

It was agonizing to stand there as Katara’s eyes flickered from Suki to Toph to Aang to the empty space where her brother should be, waiting for the opportunity to speak up.

She was still holding Toph’s hand.

And the younger girl gave her hand a mighty squeeze of reassurance. It hurt. But at least that temporary amount of pain was a brief distraction from the everlasting absence of Sokka.

“Katara…” she began. The words fell from the tip of her tongue and she didn’t have the energy to pick them back up. Maybe this would be the moment she collapses from over exerting herself or sheer exhaustion (because it isn’t really sleeping if all you encounter are nightmares, right?). But that was just wishful thinking. She would never place the burden of the news on the twelve year olds.

“Katara…” she said again, noting with dread the inevitable-- and borderline enthusiastic-- approach of Zuko and Hakoda.

There they stood: the father, the sister, and the beloved. Smiles of relief upon seeing Aang alive quickly fading when they realized the fourth was missing.

“Where’s Sokka?” asked Katara, her voice dangerously steady.

Suki opened her mouth, then closed it. She just locked eyes with the waterbender, hoping her expression was enough, so she wouldn’t have to verify the death once more. Again, Toph squeezed her hand and Aang scooted closer to her open side, his shoulder against her torso.

“Where’s Sokka?” reiterated the sister, her eyes now filled with desperation. “Somebody say something! _Where’s Sokka?”_

“He fell. From the airship.”

Her tone was harsh, even to her own ears. But it didn’t pierce anything, it didn’t even come close to doing so when the words she spoke were even sharper.

“What?” Hakoda spoke without emotion, as if he were merely an empty vessel.

“Sokka fell. It looked like he broke his leg and his shoulder was messed up…” she trailed off, swallowing thickly as if that one action would bring anyone even a small amount of closure _(it didn’t)._ “He fell off the side of the ship. Even if his outward injuries weren’t deadly, I don’t know what other ones he had. _If_ he had other ones. But there’s no way he could survive that fall. Not from that height.”

This time, it was Zuko who gained the courage to speak. “He’s really… he’s really gone?”

Suki nodded.

Still, she didn’t cry.

Not when Katara wailed. Not when Hakoda faltered, stepping backwards in order to catch himself. Not when Zuko emitted a labored grunt, leaning against Katara as if that grunt exerted all of his energy _(and from the looks of the bandages Suki noted around his chest, the news might have crushed what was already broken)._

Beside her, Aang sniffed, tears brimming in his eyes. Toph just held tighter and tighter, she had already cried.

So, Suki wrapped her free hand around Aang’s shoulders and she didn’t tell Toph to let go, not even when she started to lose a bit of the feeling in her hand.

She could take it.

“He was saving me.” The jagged voice of Toph shattered the atmosphere so close to the verge of destruction it was merely glass. Glass that scattered across the ground and died as cracks upon cracks were embedded into the ground. “He lost his grip because he helped me get back on the ship.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Aang piped up immediately.

“There’s nothing any of us could’ve done to stop him, anyways,” Suki said. “The self-sacrificing idiot.”

And they laughed. It wasn’t a real laugh, she would know. Sokka had made her giggle and snort in ways that were so real and authentic that even she didn’t know she was capable of such joy.

No, this chorus of laughter was masked by sobs. Masked by Katara darting forward and clinging to Toph, her face pressed against the earthbender’s hair.

Hakoda followed his daughter slowly, cautiously. Each step was taken with hesitation. Suki recognized the signs. It was the kind of shock and disbelief that nearly knocked her over, that made it feel as if someone had sat on her chest, shoving her body against the ground.

It was the loss of remembrance, the sudden moment of the heart not understanding how to breathe, that it was it’s job to breathe.

When he finally made it, he gently grasped his daughter’s shoulder.

Without Katara to support him, Zuko fell to his knees. Whether his legs gave out or he felt no reason to stand any longer, Suki wasn’t sure.

As a group, as a body, the five moved. Together they slowly strode until they were beside Zuko. Suki saw Aang place his hand on the nape of Zuko's neck.

There was so much noise around them. It wasn’t overstimulating or a bother, not until Suki thought about how she could make Sokka feel less tense amidst the white noise, just like how she would rub his forearm or point out silly objects she knew he would find interesting when they walked through markets together. This time there was no one to look out for, no one to find objects to entertain and distract with.

Due to her closeness with the others, she could feel Katara shaking. And how desperately she wished there was something she could do to help.

There wasn’t, though. Nothing could fill the hole in her life that her brother once occupied.

Through the muffled static of life in the streets and the sounds of grief, Suki heard Hakoda speak.

“You’re sure? There’s not a chance that he’s alive?”

“I’m so sorry,” she affirmed. “I really don’t think so. From the height and his injuries… if there was any way for me to catch him, I promise you that I would have.”

“We were--” Aang started, stopping when he choked on his own words. “We were going to try and find his body but we needed to get Ozai to prison and I was _so tired_ I don’t think I could have cleared the water myself--”

He continued on, rambling and apologizing for “making excuses”. His voice was on the verge of hysterics, speeding up as he continued to justify why they didn’t have Sokka’s body. Not that there was any real need for justification, not when he had just saved the world from eternal destruction.

“I’m so sorry, Katara…” he finished, panting. His body was heaving forcefully, and really, Suki wouldn’t be surprised if he was about to have a panic attack.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” whispered Katara. “He-he wouldn’t have wanted you to stop. So-- he would’ve wanted you to finish this _mess_ first.”

Suki could barely understand her. She was muffled, Toph’s hair restricting her volume. She paused every couple of seconds when her tears became too much and she had to cry.

“We can leave tonight,” said Zuko, still on the ground. “I can have a new airship ready in a half hour.”

“Zuko…” began Hakoda, but he never finished the thought.

The teenage boy _(and Suki realized with a great sadness that in the following weeks, he’d be the teenage Fire Lord)_ was whimpering as he struggled to get to his feet.

Katara lifted her head, half-heartedly glaring at the firebender. “Don’t hurt yourself.” The _please_ was left unsaid, but they all heard it.

“Zuko…” Hakoda reluctantly let go of his daughter and moved to help Zuko stand, keeping an arm loosely but sturdily wrapped around his side. “We don’t… we don’t _need_ to go today.”

Suki could tell even Hakoda himself didn’t believe his own words.

But, she supposed, when you’ve been fighting in a war your whole life, you didn’t have a choice. You had to wait because there was nothing else you could do besides wait. Wait for answers, wait for death, wait for the inevitability of having to carry the weight of the decisions you had to make, of what you had to give up for the benefit of the world.

All she had wanted to do was turn back around. And she almost did. She was _so close._ But they were in the middle of a war. The life of one is less than the life of many, horrible as it sounds. When the three were headed back to the Fire Nation, she desperately wanted to go back and find him _(his body),_ but there was too much at risk. The transportation of Ozai, the possibility of an unexpected attack from a forgotten soldier… 

Suki knew for a fact that she would question her decision to not turn around every day for the rest of her life.

“It’s fine-- I’m fine,” spit Zuko, determination and unrest clear in his tone. Though, Suki thought he sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. “Uncle is here. The White Lotus is here. I know they’ll take care of everything.”

“I agree with Zuko,” Toph spoke up. There was a heavy sort of silence that fell on the group for but a second as they everyone seemed to simultaneously processed that Toph called Zuko by his name rather than Sparky. “I say we get the piece of crap behind bars and then go back.”

Suki wanted nothing more than to agree with them, because she did agree. But Zuko was clearly hurt, Toph and Aang needed to be looked at just in case as well, and they were all burnt out.

But this was Sokka.

But what would Sokka want _(and it scared her how clearly she could hear him screeching to her about everyone needing a nap and a healing session)?_

“Are you--”

Again, Zuko cut her off. “I never got to tell him I loved him.”

She felt faint, as if she had been sliced by her own fan. The complete and utter hopelessness and vulnerability the firebender was radiating burned her skin.

Katara’s cries grew louder still.

“We-we only got one month together. I want to say goodbye.”

How could anyone say no to that? Zuko was pleading with them, unabashedly begging them to give him the opportunity to say goodbye to a vessel that could never respond.

_(Suki was in no place to judge, she wanted that too)_

“I’ll come with you,” she finally said, trying to push down the almost giddy pulse in her stomach because she was not giddy, not in the slightest, but she had caved-- gave in to her desire to feel _something-- anything._

Katara wiped her eyes. “Me too.”

“I’m coming,” stated Aang.

Hakoda sighed, rubbing a hand down his tired, tear-stained face. “You kids aren’t going there on your own this time. You’ve done too much of that.”

And as the group _(were they really a group when one member was missing?)_ pulled apart _(she ignored the cold front that swept through her body at the loss of contact)_ and headed towards the palace to settle as much as they could and as quickly as possible so they could be on their way, Suki still didn’t cry.

* * *

It’s the kind of pain that feels like a gentle buzzing at first; light and almost considerate of the human body.

It’s the dampness of the mouth itching him, agitating his senses.

It’s the terrifying realization that he can’t move that brings him back to reality, or he thinks, at least.

The groggy attempt to remember what happened, to know where he was-- _who_ he was.

_(he remembers eventually… how long had it taken him? A minute? An hour? Time is meaningless when you can’t truly see or process anything)_

Wetness was all he could discern beneath his back. A wet, mushy _something._

And as the pain increases, he screams, the sound ripping from his throat accompanied by a deep burning sensation. And he continues to scream because the agony is unlike anything imaginable.

It’s the sudden and horrifying realization that he has been screaming for a long time and heard nothing. No footsteps, no sounds of battle, no voices… nothing.

And he comes to the conclusion that he was-- _is--_ alone. Completely alone.

He struggles, panic pounding against his already beating head at his body’s inability to move at all. Helpless. Exposed.

With an excruciating amount of force and concentration, Sokka opened his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry?
> 
> might write a second part to this because I kind of hate myself for how I ended it but it was too painful to NOT do that haha
> 
> but uhhh I'm that-was-anticlimactic on tumblr if you want to talk Zukka or Sokka or atla or Ninjago or The Fall^tm :)
> 
> thanks for reading<3


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